"It shows how an earlier generation of people responded to similar challenges and which strategies succeeded. People rushed to greet him as he was carried into the city on a scarlet-covered couch, wearing a ring with Mithridatess portrait. The Pompeion was ravaged beyond repair and left to decay. Alexander the Great, for all his achievements, is described as a "mummy's boy" whose success rested in many ways on the more pragmatic foundations laid by his father, Philip II. The 50-man prytany met in the building known as the Bouleuterion in the Athenian agora and safe-guarded the sacred treasuries. Gloating over Roman misfortunes, he declared that Mithridates controlled all of Anatolia. Then there was also an executive committee of the boul which consisted of one tribe of the ten which participated in the boul (i.e., 50 citizens, known as prytaneis) elected on a rotation basis, so each tribe composed the executive once each year. Chiefly because of a fatal ambiguity: to its opponents democracy was no more, and no better, than mob-rule, since for them it meant the political power of the masses exercised over and at the expense of the elite. In an effort to remain a major player in world affairs, it abandoned its ideology and values to ditch past allies while maintaining special relationships with emerging powers like Macedonia and supporting old enemies like the Persian King. Athens' democracy in fact recovered from these injuries within years. Sign up for our free weekly email newsletter! Sulla had logistical problems of his own. Canada, The United States and South Africa are all examples of modern-day representative democracies. ', replies Alcibiades; 'even when it decrees by fiat, acting like a tyrant and riding roughshod over the views of the minority - is that still "law"?' We would much rather spend this money on producing more free history content for the world. In the 4th and 5th centuries BCE the male citizen population of Athens ranged from 30,000 to 60,000 depending on the period. In the furious fighting that followed, he kept his army close to Piraeus to ensure that his archers and slingers on the wall could still wreak havoc on the Romans. More loosely, it alludes to the entire range of democratic reforms that proceeded alongside the Jacksonians read more, The Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. Athens in the early first century had energy and culture. If we are all democrats today, we are not - and it is importantly because we are not - Athenian-style democrats. But why should they be? Athenian Democracy. 'What? A demagogue, a treacherous ally, and a brutal Roman general destroyed the city-stateand democracyin the first-century BC, https://www.historynet.com/the-end-of-athens/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. Last modified April 03, 2018. Web. For more details about how Ober came to . One night Sulla personally reconnoitered that stretch of wall, which was near the Dipylon Gate, the citys main entrance. Our word demagogue -- that is, an irresponsible "rabble rousing" populist politician -- is lifted directly from Athenian debates about the nature of democracy. Yet the religious views of Socrates were deeply unorthodox, his political sympathies were far from radically democratic, and he had been the teacher of at least two notorious traitors, Alcibiades and Critias. The assembly could also vote to ostracise from Athens any citizen who had become too powerful and dangerous for the polis. (According to Plutarchs Life of Sulla, the tyrant Aristion and his cronies were drinking and reveling even as famine spread. Democracy, however, was found in other areas as well and after the conquests of Alexander the Great and the process of Hellenization, it became the norm for both the liberated cities in Asia Minor as well as new . Although this Athenian democracy would survive for only two centuries, its invention by Cleisthenes, The Father of Democracy, was one of ancient Greeces most enduring contributions to the modern world. Athens, too, should throw in with this rising power, he asserted. About the same time that the Pontic army was sweeping across the province of Asia, Athens dispatched the philosopher Athenion as an envoy to Mithridates. An early example of the Greek genius for applied critical theory was their invention of political theory Three of the seven noble conspirators are given set speeches to deliver, the first in favour of democracy (though he does not actually call it that), the second in favour of aristocracy (a nice form of oligarchy), the third - delivered by Darius, who in historical fact will succeed to the throne - in favour, naturally, of constitutional monarchy, which in practice meant autocracy. Though Archelaus restored Delos to Athenian control, he turned over its treasury to Aristion, an Athenian citizen whom Mithridates had chosen to rule Athens. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. 2.37). After defeating the Bithynians, Mithridates drove into the Roman province of Asia. "Athenian Democracy." Ancient Greece is often referred to as "the cradle of democracy.". World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. It only hastened Athens' eventual defeat in the war, which was followed by the installation at Sparta's behest of an even narrower oligarchy than that of the 400 - that of the 30. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. As the new Alexander, he may also have seen the conquest of Greece as a natural move. As we have seen, only male citizens who were 18 years or over could speak (at least in theory) and vote in the assembly, whilst the positions such as magistrates and jurors were limited to those over 30 years of age. The . The contemporary sources which describe the workings of democracy typically relate to Athens and include such texts as the Constitution of the Athenians from the School of Aristotle; the works of the Greek historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon; texts of over 150 speeches by such figures as Demosthenes; inscriptions in stone of decrees, laws, contracts, public honours and more; and Greek Comedy plays such as those by Aristophanes. However, the equality Herodotus described was limited to a small segment of the Athenian population in Ancient Greece. They butchered and ate all their cattle, then boiled the hides. Mithridates swiftly retaliated, invading and overrunning Bithynia. Not All Opinions Are Equal In a democracy all opinions are equal. When Athenion returned home in the early summer of 88, citizens gave him a rapturous reception. In 229, when the Macedonian King Demetrius II died, leaving nine-year-old Philip V as his heir, the Athenians took advantage of the power vacuum and negotiated the removal of the garrison at Piraeus. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. All Rights Reserved. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Yet his plans hit a snag when Delos refused to break from Rome. World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. From the story of the rise and fall of Athens, it is clear that the concept of democracy was abused to the point that only the city's citizens had rights and the rest of the allies were considered as subjects. Most of all, Pericles paid artisans to build temples read more, Ancient Greek mythology is a vast and fascinating group of legends about gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters, warriors and fools, that were an important part of everyday life in the ancient world. laborers forced into bondage over debt, and the middle classes who were excluded from government, while not alienating the increasingly wealthy landowners and aristocracy. The Pontic troops had built other lunettes inside, but the Romans attacked each wall with manic energy. The Romans quickly got to work on their own tunnel, and when the diggers from both sides met, a savage fight broke out underground, the miners hacking at each other with spears and swords as well as they could in the darkness, according to Appian. Unlike the ekklesia, the boule met every day and did most of the hands-on work of governance. They are also, however, reminders of the human capacity for disagreement, read more, An ambiguous, controversial concept, Jacksonian Democracy in the strictest sense refers simply to the ascendancy of Andrew Jackson and the Democratic party after 1828. It is a period of history that we would do well to think about a little more right now - and we ignore it at our peril.". Democracy itself, however, buckled under the strain. I was not sent to Athens by the Romans to learn its history, but to subdue its rebels, he declared. They denied specifically that the sort of knowledge available to and used by ordinary people, popular knowledge if you like, was really knowledge at all. Though he at first refused, he later relented and sent a delegation to meet with the Roman commander. Dr Scott's study also marks an attempt to recognise figures such as Isocrates and Phocion - sage political advisers who tried to steer it away from crippling confrontations with other Greek states and Macedonia. Hes just returned to the city-state from a mission across the Aegean Sea to Anatolia, where he forged an alliance with a great king. The Athenian statesman Pericles defined democracy as a system which protects the interests of all the people, not just a minority. What he failed to realize, however, is that crowding the population of Athens behind its Long Walls would be deadly if disease ever broke out in Athens while Sparta had it besieged. Then there was the view that the mob, the poor majority, were nothing but a collective tyrant. But when one of the Athenian delegates began a grand speech about their citys great past, Sulla abruptly dismissed them. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. At one point, the Romans carried a ram to the top of one of the mounds fashioned from the rubble of the Long Walls. His short and vehement pamphlet was produced probably in the 420s, during the first decade of the Peloponnesian War, and makes the following case: democracy is appalling, since it represents the rule of the poor, ignorant, fickle and stupid majority over the socially and intellectually superior minority, the world turned upside down. Nine presidents (proedroi), elected by lot and holding the office one time only, organised the proceedings and assessed the voting. The University of Cambridge will use your email address to send you our weekly research news email. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. But geometry worked against him. (Only about 5,000 men attended each session of the Assembly; the rest were serving in the army or navy or working to support their families.). At the start of the century Athens, contrary to traditional reports, was a flourishing democracy. Athenian democracy developed around the fifth century B.C.E. They therefore in a sense deserved the political pay-off of mass-biased democracy as a reward for their crucial naval role. To some extent Socrates was being used as a scapegoat, an expiatory sacrifice to appease the gods who must have been implacably angry with the Athenians to inflict on them such horrors as plague and famine as well as military defeat and civil war. Critics of democracy, such as Thucydides and Aristophanes, pointed out that not only were proceedings dominated by an elite, but that the dmos could be too often swayed by a good orator or popular leaders (the demagogues), get carried away with their emotions, or lack the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions. was part of the first Persian invasion of Greece. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. He detached a force to surround Athens, then struck at Piraeus, where Archelaus and his troops were stationed. But where Athenion failed, Mithridates was determined to succeed. Modern representative democracies, in contrast to direct democracies, have citizens who vote for representatives who create and enact laws on their behalf. The Pontic army used scythes mounted on chariots as weapons of terror, cutting swaths through the Bithynian ranks. Rome, which was preoccupied fighting its former Italian allies in the Social War (9188), failed to step in to settle matters, increasing resentment in Athens. (There were also no rules about what kinds of cases could be prosecuted or what could and could not be said at trial, and so Athenian citizens frequently used the dikasteria to punish or embarrass their enemies.). The Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Body, Report on the allegations and matters raised in the BUAV report, Non-human primates (marmosets and rhesus macaques). Democracy inevitably fails because it is predicated not on merit but on popularity. As below ground, so above. Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University. In the year 507 B.C., the Athenian leader Cleisthenes introduced a system of political reforms that he called demokratia, or rule by the people (from demos, the people, and kratos, or power). 'What', asks the teenage Alcibiades pseudo-innocently, is 'law'? It dealt with ambassadors and representatives from other city-states. With Athens under his thumb, Sulla turned back to Piraeus. World History Encyclopedia, 03 Apr 2018. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. In 399 he was charged with impiety (through not duly recognising the gods the city recognised, and introducing new, unrecognised divinities) and, a separate alleged offence, corrupting the young. The mass involvement of all male citizens and the expectation that they should participate actively in the running of the polis is clear in this quote from Thucydides: We alone consider a citizen who does not partake in politics not only one who minds his own business but useless. Buildings in the Agora and on the south side of the Acropolis remained damaged for decades, monuments to the poverty in postwar Athens. Specific issues discussed in the assembly included deciding military and financial magistracies, organising and maintaining food supplies, initiating legislation and political trials, deciding to send envoys, deciding whether or not to sign treaties, voting to raise or spend funds, and debating military matters. "If history can provide a map of where we have been, a mirror to where we are right now and perhaps even a guide to what we should do next, the story of this period is perfectly suited to do that in our times," Dr. Scott said. The third important institution was the popular courts, or dikasteria. For example, in Athens in the middle of the 4th century there were about 100,000 citizens (Athenian citizenship was limited to men and women whose parents had also been Athenian citizens), about 10,000 metoikoi, or resident foreigners, and 150,000 slaves. Many of its economic problems were gradually solved by attracting wealthy immigrants to Athens - which as a name still carried considerable prestige. Demagogue meant literally 'leader of the demos' ('demos' means people); but democracy's critics took it to mean mis-leaders of the people, mere rabble-rousers. The king probably wished to engage the Romans far to the west, away from his core territories in Anatolia. License. Plato realized why democracy failed - even in ideal conditions, such as the direct democracy of ancient Athens. Throughout the siege, Sulla got regular reports from spies inside Piraeustwo Athenian slaves who inscribed notes on lead balls that they shot with slings into the Roman lines. Since Athenians did not pay taxes, the money for these payments came from customs duties, contributions from allies and taxes levied on the metoikoi. The group made decisions by simple majority vote. Dr. Scott argues that this was caused by a range of circumstances which in many cases were the ancient world's equivalent of those faced by Britain today. Regardless, Sulla benefited greatly. Indeed, the failure to make badly needed changes in such key areas as pensions and health (under PASOK) and education (under ND) became the most striking feature of all governments in Greece's. Becoming more desperate, they gathered wild plants on the slopes of the Acropolis and boiled shoes and leather oil-flasks. With winter coming on, Sulla established his camp at Eleusis, 14 miles west of Athens, where a ditch running to the sea protected his men. This money was only to cover expenses though, as any attempt to profit from public positions was severely punished. "Athenian Democracy." Out of all those people, only male citizens who were older than 18 were a part of the demos, meaning only about 40,000 people could participate in the democratic process. Although active participation was encouraged, attendance in the assembly was paid for in certain periods, which was a measure to encourage citizens who lived far away and could not afford the time off to attend. I wish to receive a weekly Cambridge research news summary by email. Weary of the siege and determined to seize the city by assault, he ordered his soldiers to fire an endless stream of arrows and javelins. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. It was this revived democracy that in 406 committed what its critics both ancient and modern consider to have been the biggest single practical blunder in the democracy's history: the trial and condemnation to death of all eight generals involved in the pyrrhic naval victory at Arginusae. Inside Piraeus, Archelaus countered by building towers for his siege engines. Archaic Greece saw advances in art, poetry and technology, but is known as the age in which the polis, or city-state, was read more, In the late 6th century B.C., the Greek city-state of Athens began to lay the foundations for a new kind of political system. Thanks to Sullas ruthlessness, Athenions demagoguery, and the Athenians manic enthusiasm for the proposed alliance with Mithridates, Athenss days as an autonomous city-state were all but over. The word democracy comes from the Greek words demos, meaning "the people," and kratos, meaning "to rule.". Sulla had siege engines built on the spot, cutting down the groves of trees in the Athenian suburb of the Academy, where Plato had taught some three centuries earlier. Athens remains a posterchild for democracies worldwide, but it was not a pure democracy. The city held festivals and presented nine plays each year, both comedies and tragedies. (Thuc. Meanwhile, our democratically elected representatives are holding on to the fuse in one hand and a box of matches in the other. But what did the development of Athenian democracy actually involve? In addition, sometimes even oligarchic systems could involve a high degree of political equality, but the Athenian version, starting from c. 460 BCE and ending c. 320 BCE and involving all male citizens, was certainly the most developed. Its economy, heavily dependent on trade and resources from overseas, crashed when in the 4th century instability in the region began to affect the arterial routes through which those supplies flowed. The word democracy (dmokratia) derives from dmos, which refers to the entire citizen body: the People. Its popular Assembly directed internal affairs as a showcase of democracy. Athenions fate is not clear. Cartwright, Mark. It shows how an earlier generation of people responded to similar challenges and which strategies succeeded. S2 ep4: What would a more just future look like? Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Athens declared the Delos harbor duty-free, and the island prospered as a major trading center. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/Athenian_Democracy/. The Athenian defenders, weakened by hunger, fled. Fighting ensued, and the Athenians then took steps that explicitly violated the Thirty Years' Treaty. In 146, they ruthlessly destroyed the city-state of Corinth and established their authority over much of Greece. The boule was a group of 500 men, 50 from each of ten Athenian tribes, who served on the Council for one year. Last updated 2011-02-17. Athens is a city-state, while today we are familiar with the primary unit of governance . When the Romans destroyed the Macedonian Kingdom in 168, the Senate awarded Athens the Aegean island of Delos. People of power or influence weren't concerned with the rights of such non-citizens. The second important institution was the boule, or Council of Five Hundred. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. The word democracy (dmokratia) derives from dmos, which refers to the entire citizen body, and kratos, meaning rule. Citizens probably accounted for 10-20% of the polis population, and of these it has been estimated that only 3,000 or so people actively participated in politics. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. As the year 87 drew on, Mithridates sent additional troops. By the end, it was hailing its latest ruler, Demetrius, as both a king and a living God. According to the writer's dramatic scenario, we are in what we would now call the year 522 BC. The Pontic king sent his Greek mercenary, General Archelaus, into the Aegean with a fleet. Illustrating the esteem in which democratic government was held, there was even a divine personification of the ideal of democracy, the goddess Demokratia. Historian Appian states that the Pontics massacred thousands of Italians there, a repeat of the slaughter in Anatolia. Therefore, women, slaves, and resident foreigners (metoikoi) were excluded from the political process. Sulla called a halt to the pillage and slaughter. Positions on the boule were chosen by lot and not by election. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. A further variant on this view was that the masses or the mob, being ignorant and stupid for the most part, were easily swayed by specious rhetoric - so easily swayed that they were incapable of taking longer views or of sticking resolutely to one, good view once that had been adopted. Pericles, (born c. 495 bce, Athensdied 429, Athens), Athenian statesman largely responsible for the full development, in the later 5th century bce, of both the Athenian democracy and the Athenian empire, making Athens the political and cultural focus of Greece. The first was the ekklesia, or Assembly, the sovereign governing body of Athens. The assembly met at least once a month, more likely two or three times, on the Pnyx hill in a dedicated space which could accommodate around 6000 citizens.